Accounting and inventory software for small manufacturers

Know what a unit really costs

Small manufacturers usually know their selling price to the cent and their cost only roughly. Material prices change, freight arrives on a separate invoice, some orders need custom work, and the spreadsheet that holds the costing model drifts away from the books. Pricing from a stale cost is how a busy year turns into a thin one.

SeroBooks keeps costing inside the ledger. Materials are received against purchase orders with landed cost applied, assemblies consume components at their actual value, and finished goods carry that cost into inventory and cost of goods sold. Margin reports then reflect what you actually spent rather than what you assumed. You can update a selling price with confidence when the cost behind it is current.

Materials, purchasing and landed cost

Purchase orders go to suppliers, goods received notes record what arrived, and bills are matched to both. Foreign-currency bills handle overseas suppliers, and purchase returns handle shorts or rejected lots. Receipt and invoice scanning turns a photographed supplier bill into a draft entry, which saves keying on small purchases. Each bill can be matched to the order and receipt it belongs to.

Landed cost allocates freight, duty and brokerage across the materials on each receipt. For a manufacturer importing components, that can be the difference between a product that looks profitable and one that is. Warehouse bins, stock transfers and adjustments keep the raw material count accurate between production runs. Counts can be checked against the ledger at any time, not just at year-end.

• Purchase orders and goods received
• Landed cost allocation
• Foreign-currency bills and purchase returns
• Receipt and invoice scanning
• Warehouse bins and stock adjustments

Assemblies and production

SeroBooks assemblies define a finished item from its components. Building an assembly relieves the components from stock and adds the finished goods at their combined cost, keeping both inventory and the balance sheet correct. Batch and expiry tracking and serial numbers carry traceability through to the customer invoice. Lot numbers make recalls and quality checks far less painful.

Food producers, bakeries and small-batch makers can also use SeroPOS recipe and bill-of-materials production, which includes ingredient-level costing. That suits a production kitchen or a maker with a retail counter, and SeroPOS syncs into SeroBooks so production and sales still land in the same ledger. Ingredient costs update as purchase prices change, so recipes stay accurately costed.

• Assemblies from component stock (SeroBooks)
• Batch, expiry and serial tracking (SeroBooks)
• Recipe and BOM production with ingredient costing (SeroPOS)
• Barcode labels for finished goods

Job costing and custom orders

Not every order is a stock item. Custom fabrication, private-label runs and one-off contracts need costs tracked against the job. SeroBooks Pro includes projects, classes and job costing, so materials, labour and bills can be assigned to a job and compared against what you invoiced. Bills for subcontracted work can be tied to the job as well.

Estimates and quotes start the process, sales orders confirm it, and invoices close it out. Job profitability reports show which customers and product lines actually earn their keep, which is useful when deciding which work to chase next quarter and which to quote higher. Over time, those reports become a better guide for quoting than any spreadsheet model.

Forecasting, payroll and control

Demand forecasting uses two lead times so you can plan material purchases and production timing together. On Pro, Maya, the AI employee in SeroBooks, can draft purchase orders and reorder points for your approval. Maya never acts without approval, and every action is recorded in an append-only audit trail.

SeroBooks Pro at $300 USD a month includes payroll for Canada and the US in the same ledger, plus three locations, six users and an audit trail. Canadian manufacturers who want payroll on its own can use SeroPayroll, with WCB and provincial health levies handled, from $25 USD a month for up to 10 employees.